STUDIES IN ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE Published under the auspices of the Society for the Study of Islamic Philosophy and Science Eprrortat. Boar George F. Hourani, State University of New York at Buffalo Muhsin Mahdi, Harvard University Parvie Morewedge, Baruch Callge of City Universi of New York a ° Nicholas Rescher, University of Pittsburgh Ehsan Yar-Shater, Columbia University AL-KINDI’S METAPHYSICS A Translation of Ya‘qiib ibn Ishaq al-Kindi’s Treatise “ON FIRST PHILOSOPHY” (ft al-Falsafah al-Ola) usa with Introduction and Commentary by Alfred L. Ivry STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS ALBANY, 1974Published by State University of New York Press 99 Washington Avenue, Albany, New York 12210 © 1974 State University of New York Al rights reserved Printed in the U.S.A. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data al-Kindi, dca. 873. al-Kind’s Metaphysics. “Published under the auspices of the Society for the Study of Islamic Philosophy and Science.” ‘A revised version ofthe editor's doctoral dissertation, Oxford University Bibliography: p. 1. Philosophy, Islamic. I. Ivry, Alfred L.,1935- ed. 11. Society for the Study of Islamic Philosophy and Science. IMI. Title. IV. Title: ‘On first philosophy. 1B53.K53F3513. 1974 18.07 7o-171182 ISBN 0.87395.002-5 FOR JOANNAcknowledgments sw Tas work is a revised version of an Oxford University doctoral dissertation. It has grown out of research begun at Oxford in 1963-65 while I was on a Fulbright Fellowship there. I am grateful to the Principal and Fellows of Linacre College for their hospitality and friendship during my stay in Oxford. T was encouraged to work on al-Kindi by Richard Walzer, F.B.A,, whose knowledge and understanding have been @ constant source of inspiration. The work in its present form has also benefited from recommendations suggested by Professors S. Pines, F. Rosenthal, R. J. McCarthy, S.J., M.C. Lyons, and N. Kretzmann. The Hull Publication Memorial Fund of Cornell University has facilitated the pub- lication of this book with a generous subvention, and the Editorial Board of the Society for the Study of Islamic Philos- ophy and Science has shown great interest in the publication of this work. I wish to express my sincere appreciation to all these scholars and institutions for their assistance. Portions of this study have appeared in Islamic Philosophy and the Classical Tradition: Essays Presented ... to Richard Walzer (Cassirer, 1972) ; Essays on Islamic Philosophy and Science (Albany, forthcoming). I wish to thank the editors of these publica tions for giving me their permission to present the material in its present form. Cornell University AL Ithaca, New York September 1971Contents now Part Introduction .......00.000005 aa Chapter 1. Al-Kindi and Kind? Studies: A Résumé 3 Chapter 2. On First Philosophy: Text and Translation: A Description ... 7 ‘An Analysis ..... Mt Chapter 3. Al-Kindi and the Mu‘tazilah A Reevaluation . 2 Notes sete : 35 PartII Text and Commentary 53 On First Philosophy ........ - 55 Commentary . 15 List of Abbreviations ..... Bibliography... ...0.000 Index ooo 201 Index of Aristotelian SourcesPART I AGI? NES IntroductionCHAPTER ONE nus Al-Kindi and Kindi Studies: A Résumé Tue Name or Abi Yosuf Ya‘qib ibn Ishaq al-Kindi, “the philosopher of the Arabs”, is well known to students of Islamic culture, and recent years have seen a number of stu- dies devoted to him. We need not, therefore, rehearse in de- tail the facts of al-Kind’s life and accomplishments, presented originally by Tbn al-Nadim and others. It is enough to say that al-Kind? was born probably in Kufah toward the end of the eighth Christian century or beginning of the ninth, during the tenure of his father, Ishaq ibn al-Sabbah, as governor there. The family was used to holding important positions, tracing its lineage back to the kings of the South Arabian tribe of Kindah, and counting among its ancestors a Companion of the Prophet. Al-Kindi began his education at either Kufah or Basrah, and completed it at Baghdad, the centers of culture of his day. He became well known in the “Abbasid capital as a scho- lar and physician, enjoyed the patronage of the caliphs al- ‘Ma’miin and al-Mu‘tasim, and was appointed tutor of the latter’s son Ahmad. In this favorable environment he pursued his many-faceted studies,? becoming a famous and even le- gendary figure. For some reason, however (the sources are not completely satisfactory), al-Kindi fell from favor in the time of the caliph al-Mutawakkil, his large private library was confiscated and he was apparently beaten. Though the library was subsequently restored to him, al-Kindi never regained a position of official eminence, and died in Baghdad about A.D. 870. Recent studies have served to fil out the social and cultural 3AL-KINDI's METAPHYSICS background of the times in which al-Kindi lived, allowing us to view him in proper perspective, and to appreciate the drama that is contained in even such a thumbnail sketch of his life as has just been given. ‘Thus, from our knowledge of the transmission of philosophical studies from the world of late Greek thought to the major intellectual centers of the eighth and ninth centuries in Iraq (mostly through a Syriac Christian intermediary),? we can place al-Kindi at or near the beginning of a philosophical current that remained vital in the Islamic world for some centuries thereafter. Al-Kindi’s “audience” would have been composed of members of the caliph’s family and other aristocrats, fellow scholars, students and theologians of every persuasion. That many of these, particularly the Muslims, would have had trouble following him may be inferred externally from the fact that the Arabic texts upon which he bases his views were recent—in some cases very recent—translations;* and internally, from the juxtaposition throughout his writing of relatively sophisticated arguments with elementary definitions and discussions. Al-Kindi was not, of course, operating in a philosophical vacuum, and Christian theologians in particular would have been familiar with many of his ideas.* Yet it is clear, from the dedications to many of his treatises and from the introductory comments to such treatises as On First Philosophy and the paraphrase of Ptolemy's Almagest* that al-Kindi was addressing himself primarily to his fellow Muslims, for ‘most of whom his teachings provided a philosophical initia- tion. That these teachings were not necessarily well received may be deduced from the special pleading with which al- Kindi occasionally introduces his treatises (e.g., On First Philosophy); and we may be certain that he had to struggle against suspicious and hostile attitudes to philosophy, viewed as part of the new, secular and “foreign” culture that was anathema to more traditional circles.” Among these may be counted not only extreme traditionalists such as Ahmad ibn Hanbal, but the more rationally oriented Mu‘tazilah as well. Al-Kind?’s relationship to this latter group—which is ex- amined in some detail in chapter three of the introduction 4 AL-KINDI AND KINDI STUDIES below—is complicated by the politicization of faith and scholarship that followed the establishment of the Mihnak in A.H. 218/A.D. 833° Under the sanction of that institution, and in the name of rational faith, the Mu‘tazilak persecuted with varying intensity, but at times great cruelty, saintly jurists as well as simple soldiers.* This inquisition, in turn, ought to be seen against a back- ground of competing social and ethnic forces, ® among which, however, itis difficult to locate al-Kindi. It would scem that, though an Arabian aristocrat, he is to be placed with the largely non-Arab forces that introduced secular studies into Islamic society; however, there is no conclusive evidence that he identified socially or politically with any particular group or religious sect. His misfortunes under al-Mutawakkil were apparently due more to personal intrigue or to a general change of intellectual orientation at court, than to his religious beliefs. ‘A similar ambiguity surrounds al-Kindi’s personality. Although he is often described as avaricious," the newly- discovered material from al-Si ‘Siwén al-Hikmah shows him to be virtuous as well as wise."* Clearly, the last word on al-Kindi the man has yet to be written, and he stands out as an interesting figure about whom we should wish to know more. This wish has been partially granted, in the field of al-Kin- di’s philosophical pursuits, with the publication of an appre- ciable number of his treatises. To the collection of Latin translations of al-Kindi treatises edited by A. Nagy in the last century," Richard Walzer has added two masterly textual analyses; and M.‘A.H. Aba Ridah has published a ‘two-volume edition of twenty-five of al-Kindi’s philosophical treatises, accompanied by a lengthy introductory general evaluation as well as individual introductions to each trea- tise.15 From these and other sources,!* a picture of al-Kindi the philosopher has emerged which balances somewhat the shal- ow, often negative judgement passed upon him by earlier philosophers and bibliographers."” True, his logic is not ana- lytical and his philosophy not particularly consistent; yet there is no denying his erudition and industriousness, his 5AL-KINDI'S METAPHYSICS attempt to comprehend and convey past philosophies as parts of an essentially unified tradition, and his desire to select from this tradition that which would make for a viable philosophy in an Islamic society. CHAPTER TWO aus On First Philosophy TEXT AND TRANSLATION: A DESCRIPTION Tux Arante Text oF On First Philosophy (FP in later references) is found among the manuscripts of the codex Aya Sofya 4832 (no. 23, pp. 43a-53a).! Hellmut Ritter has described the codex as being in a format of 22 x 12 cm., on dark brown paper of 32 lines to the page, the manuscripts being written in an angular, nearly entirely unpointed Naskki-Kufi hand of the Sth century A.H./Ilth century A.D? Since Ritter’s discovery of this codex, two editions of the Arabic text of FP have appeared: a problematic edition by A. al-Ahwani, and a careful, scholarly work by M. ‘A.H. Aba Ridah.? No translation has hitherto appeared in any language, Western or Eastern, though a rough, preliminary edition and Italian translation was prepared by Michelangelo Guidi and Richard Walzer over thirty years ago, which Dr. Walzer kindly allowed me to consult. ‘The translation offered hherein has benefited from all these earlier readings of the manuscript. ‘Abii Ridah’s edition (AR in later references) has been used. as the primary reference for the translation, with all manus- cript peculiarities which are not mentioned by Aba Ridah, as well as all deviations from his reading of the manuscript, mentioned in the apparatus below the translation. Reference is also made there to al-Ahwani’s readings (AH), where they appear superior to AR or equally plausible. ‘My translation frequently differs with the determination 7AL-KINDI'S: METAPHYSICS. of sentences and paragraphs established by AR, a difference which is left unremarked in the apparatus but which the rea- der familiar with Arabic will immediately notice. While attempting a faithful, literal translation wherever possible, I have had at times to restructure al-Kindi’s long, involved sentences, so that the English reader will find them compre- hensible. The notes in the commentary should, hopefully, clarify any remaining awkwardness in the translation. The commentary itself is rather detailed, for besides elucidating al-Kind?’s presentation of the argument in FP, it compares his remarks there with those he makes in other treatises, and relates his work wherever possible to the Greek sources which he helped introduce into Islamic thought. While references to many of al-Kindi’s other treatises abound in the commentary, detailed textual comparisons are made with such cognate texts as his treatises “On the Unity of God and the Finiteness of the Body of the World” (UG) ; “An Explanation of the Finiteness of the Body of the World” (EF); and “On the Essence of that which cannot be Infinite and that of which Infinity can be Predicated” (OE). In addition, the treatise “On the Definitions and Descriptions of Things” (AR I: 165-180), offers many an important com- parison with FP. Among the Greek works used by al-Kindi in Arabic translation, that done of the Metaphysics by al-Kindi’s contemporary Astat provides particularly intriguing textual ‘comparisons. A brief summary of the contents of FP is as follows: CHAPTER 1 (AR 97-105) Al-Kindi begins the treatise by expressing homage to the caliph to whom the book is dedicated, al-Mu‘tasim Billa} He then immediately introduces his subject by extolling phi losophy as the greatest and most noble human art, since it seeks to know the true nature of things. Knowledge of things is considered dependent upon knowledge of their causes, the ultimate cause of all being the “True One”, knowledge of whom is “First Philosophy”. ‘The four (Aristotelian) causes are described and related to four types of inquiry and to substance. The difficulty of ob- 8 (ON FIRST PHILOSOPHY taining all the truth evokes recognition of the joint effort re- quired in philosophy, and gratitude for the efforts of all pre- vious philosophers, the use of whose work al-Kindi fully (though in general terms) acknowledges. He is opposed, how- ever, to those who do not appreciate the philosophical tradi- tion, and who subscribe to other standards and methods of truth; impugning their motives, he calls for their ouster from positions of religious leadership within the community. The true message of faith is compatible with philosophy, he con- tends, claiming that one must know philosophy if only to be able to refute the necessity of knowing it. The chapter conclu- es with an invocation of Divine assistance in the task of tablishing proof of the Divinity (1e., existence) and unity of God. (CHAPTER 2 (AR 106-122) Al-Kindi begins the chapter with a comparison of sensory and intellectual perception, the latter of which is deemed su- perio. A spatial example is chosen to illustrate the nature of a necessary intellectual perception; leading al-Kindi to assert belief in the finiteness of the universe, on the principle of the impossibility of something being infinite in actuality. Returning to different kinds of perception, al-Kindi em- phasizes the need to use the appropriate method in investi- gating a particular subject, not, e.g., confusing probable with demonstrative arguments in mathematics. This leads al-Kindi to assert the principles with which he works in FP. they refer firstly to the concept of an eternal being, clarifying the meaning of the term logically and relating it to a unique being; and secondly, to basic ideas of corporeal equality and inequality, founded on the laws of identity, con- tradiction, and the excluded middle. Working with these latter principles, al-Kindi offers a number of arguments to prove that a body, and its properties of time and motion, can- not be infinite in actuality. While establishing the necessity for a finite universe, he also shows that it could not, in ordina- ry physical terms, either have come from nothing or have been. in a state of rest before motion, @AL-KINDI'S METAPHYSICS ‘CHAPTER 8 (AR 123-148) ‘The chapter opens with an examination and rejection of the concepts of auto-causation, and of an essence as separate from the substance of which it is the essence. These latter terms are related to one or another of the predicables, which are defined. These predicables—the genus, species, individual (!), specific difference, property and common accident—then serve as the subjects for a detailed discussion of the ways in which “one” is predicated, al-Kindi showing that in each case the predicable is not “essentially” one.” The accidental unity in everything is taken as indicative of the existence of an ‘external agent which imposes unity from without upon the predicable and related quantities, the agent possessing unity essentially. ‘The nature of everything in our experience is shown to require elements of both unity and multiplicity (i, plurality), the assumption of either existing alone in something leading to absurd conclusions, which al-Kindi works out in detail for both. The necessary association in everything of unity and multiplicity is seen as requiring a cause which cannot be simi- lar to it in any way and must be an absolute unity. CHAPTER 4 (AR 148-162) Absolute unity is shown as not found in anything possessing quantity, size being relative. Nothing is absolutely large or small, not even the number 2. The possibility of 1 being a number is examined and ultimately rejected, it being viewed as the element of number, multiple in its relation to numbers. Relative sizes are applicable only to other members of the same genus, diverse examples being given. ‘The True One, itis reiterated, has no genus and cannot be compared with anything. Itis eternal and absolutely one, and al-Kindi describes it in terms of what it is not. It is not com- parable to any of the predicables and does not possess any physical properties whatsoever. The True One is likewise neither soul nor intellect, both of which are considered mul- tiple and not essentially one. Comparison with other things is further excluded by the insistence that the True One is nei- 10 (ON FIRST PHILOSOPHY ther synonymous nor homonymous with anything, and its unity is one neither through number, form, genus, or analogy. ‘The True One is, therefore, a unique being, absolutely and essentially one, responsible through an emanative power for the unity which exists in other things accidentally, but which unity is not part of the being of the True One. The True One thus causes everything to come to be, the ultimate cause of the unity of all being; and also causes the creation of the world from nothing, being uniquely capable of initiating movement. Without unity objects would perish, the True One thus responsible also for the continuing existence of the world. AL-Kindi concludes the treatise (or, strictly speaking, the first part of it, which is the only part extant) with mention of the True One's creative, emanative and powerful nature, having shown that the unity (and thus the existence) of all else is “metaphorical”. AN ANALYSIS Any ATTEMPT to make philosophical sense of an al-Kindi treatise is often complicated by an abbreviated style, in whi the premises of arguments may be missing,* important terms may be used without being defined,’ and whole “treatises” can consist of a few pages.1” This shortcoming is “balanced”, as it were, by redundant passages and treatises," and by itive arguments which seek to establish a universal pro- position by offering the same proof in formulaic type state- ments for each member of a class.!* ‘These stylistic characteristics indicate that al-Kindt’s philo- sophical works ought to be read not as self-contained pieces, but in conjunction with one another. We ought, perhaps, to view each kitdb and risdlak of his as part of a continuing lecture series addressed to a small and select audience, for whose phi- losophical inexperience or skepticism he made allowance by providing an oral commentary, as well as by referring to his other written works.1* Tt is this hypothesis of a semi-private uAR7.8 10 AL-RINDI'S METAPHYSICS and semi-oral tradition which may best account for the unsat- isfactory state of al-Kind?’s written corpus, much of which was probably not only published and titled after its author's death, but also collected and given its “definitive” shape then. If one can claim a certain philosophical credibility for those Kindian treatises which are in their present form essen- tially fragmentary, certainly the same can be said for al-Kin- di’s major philosophical treatise, ft al-Falsafah al-Ola, a work which exhibits the awareness and concerns of one who was both a professing Muslim and a committed philosopher. ‘The treatise opens with a celebration and explanation of the philosophical pursuit, which I have translated as follows."* Indeed, the human art which is highest in degree and most noble in rank is the art of philosophy, the definition of which is knowledge of the true nature of things, insofar as is possible for man. The aim of the philosopher is, as regards his knowledge,/to attain the truth, and as regards his action, to act truthfully; not that the activity is endless, for we abstain and the activity ceases, once we have reached the truth, We do not find the truth we are seeking without finding a cause; the cause of the existence and continuance of everyting is The True One, in that each thing which hhas being has truth. The True One exists necessarily, and therefore beings exist/The noblest part of philosophy and the highest in rank is the First Philosophy, i.e., knowledge of the First Truth Who is the cause of all truth. ‘This passage makes it clear that the theoretical aim of the philosopher is to “attain the truth”, which is ultimately “the First Truth Who is the cause of all truth”. Such a remark may lead one to think of the Neoplatonic emphasis upon a single source of all being; and looking to Plotinian models, certain obscurities in this and subsequent passages of FP be- come clear. Thus, the relation between being and truth, inad- equately stated above, assumes that all beings owe their existence to the necessary existence of the True One;!? the combination and ultimate identity of being and truth in His nature being responsible for their particular occurrences and correlations in this world. 12 ON FIRST PHILOSOPHY tis significant, however, that al-Kindi does not detail this causal relationship, and that he does not develop the notion of the identity of truth and being. For the Neoplatonic doctri- ne of emanation posits an unbroken chain of being,¥* while its epistemology leads to a mystic unity with the One; doctrines which al-Kindi eschews.2° Indeed, the qualifications and physical limitations put upon the philosophical endeavor already in this opening paragraph seem designed to proclaim al-Kindi's awareness of the limitations—as well as possibili- ties—of philosophy. It is, again, the Neoplatonic background which makes sense of al-Kindi’s use of “cause” in the above quotation, since he follows this passage with another which stresses that there are just four causes, the well known Aristotelian “material”, “formal”, “efficient”, and “final” causes;** and al-Kindi states clearly that every cause must be one or the other of these. This, however, apparently means every cause except for the “first cause” which contains all the others and is pre-eminent in everything.* Granting this, however, one must also admit that al-Kindi proceeds to ignore this sense of cause for most of the treatise, and that he remains instead within the Aristotelian frame- work of causality. Within this framework he attempts to prove that nothing but God is essentially one. One sees an am- bivalent usage of terminology, al-Kindi alluding to Neoplato- nic doctrine but not really justifying it or working with it. This employment of a term in a unique, absolute sense is particularly noticeable with “the One”, since al-Kindi finds against the existence of an absolute one just prior to his adop- tion of such a concept in relation to God.** Ordinarily, al- Kingi feels, there is no quantity or number that is so large that it cannot in theory be larger, nor so small that it cannot be smaller. Al-Kindi does at first make a mathematical excep- tion to this rule, claiming that the number “two” is the lowest numerical limit, on the grounds that the term “one” is a unit of quantity and does not possess quantity itself, which “num- bers” must.* Two is, at the same time, admitted to be double the one, and therefore not absolutely small. In admitting this, however, “one” is brought into a quantifiable relation- 13AL-KINDI'S METAPHYSICS ship, and its exclusion from number seems ultimately arbi- trary. This impression is reinforced later in the treatise,#* when al-Kindi says that the numerically one is, through its position as the measure of all things, also multiple. Al-Kindi was probably attracted to the idea of a non-nume- rical “one” in part because of the similarity of this concept with that of the “True One”: separate from number, “one” is yet the base of all numbers; not a quantity, itis not not a quan- tity. It is the device whereby enumeration, quantification, in short, knowledge of this world becomes possible. So too with the First Cause, the “True One”: while viewed as the source and guarantor of all being and becoming, itis explicitly divor- ced from them: while certainly not unrelated to the world, neither is the “True One” related in any demonstrable sense. Nothing is to be predicated of the “True One” whatsoever, not even, as we have seen, numerical oneness. It is at most a homonym, though al-Kindi does not admit even this much.” Yet, despite its philosophical ambiguity, al-Kindi refers —albeit seldom—to the “True One”, as he does to “The First” and “The Eternal” (which is said to have “being” and to be “self'subsistent”).!* His use of these terms is certainly not careless nor could he be using them merely as homonyms. ‘The thrust of his entire conceptual system depends upon the positing of an essentially unified, independent source of all reality; even as his logic undermines credibility in such an entity as rationally defensible. Similarly, al-Kindi establishes at one point in FP that the ‘motion of the universe could neither have begun from nothing since, assuming the impossibility of creatio ex nihilo, an external prior body would have to be posited as the source of motion, and this would lead to an inadminible infinite gression—nor could the motion have begun from a prior state of rest, since there would be no reason for a change to motion.*® This indicates that al-Kindi was certain that there is no strictly philosophical explanation, at least not along Aristotelian lines, for the origin of motion and matter, in which he believed. It is the equivocal use of terms that enables al-Kindi to resolve physical problems with non-physical concepts; which, 4 ON FIRST PHILOSOPHY however, he couches in physical terminology. Yet however few the epithets used to describe God in physical relation with the world, they are too many in terms of al-Kindi’s own argument. The via negativa can lead only to a Deus Negatious or Absconditus; a Creator—the one non-philosophical term al-Kindi uses—about whom, however, we Anow nothing.* ‘This problem is sensed by al-Kindi, though he was certainly not aware how ultimately self-defeating his negative approach is, It is the emanationist structure—barely mentioned in this treatise—which is intended, as we have seen, to bridge this cognitive and ontological gap. It is therefore suprising to find that al-Kindi borrows so little explicit doctrine from the major work of Neoplatonism, Plotinus’ Emads; the para~ phrase of which he is credited with having “corrected” —aslahahu—for al-Mu‘tasim Billah.** Indeed, after some initial resemblance between the two works,* textual parallels with the Theology suggest themselves aly towards the end of FP, when background knowledge of the former work can clarify al-Kindi’s position. Thus his description of the relation of the “True One” to “caused” or “accidental” unity, ic. the relation of God to the world, revolves around the words “unity”, “being”, and “emanation”, wahdah, huwiyah, and fayd. It i, al-Kindi con- tends, by some (unexplored) emanative process that qualified- ly “unified” things “come to be” from the absolutely unified Being.* Now the Theology of Aristotle is primarily a detailed exami- nation of this very structure of emanation, describing the va- rious universal hypostases of intellect, soul and nature, and analysing their relation to each other and to the One. The fact that al-Kindi virtually ignores this world of intelli entities probably reflects his unresolved relationship to the Neoplatonic metaphysic. He is, however, congenial to the idea of emanation if not to the details, and receptive to the terminological shell of Neoplatonism, while altering its inner meaning. Thus he apparently treats the process of “coming to bbe” (as distinct from the act of the Divine agent) as equivalent te physical generation, since he views practically all “being” as multiple, hence divisible, and perishable. However, in the 15AL-KINDI'S: METAPHYSICS equivalent Theology passage, which treats of the relation bet- ween “the first cause and the things which originate from it”, huwiyah is considered as the first emanation which “gushes forth”—inbajasa—from The One; and from it the univer- sal intellect and subsequent entities are formed. In other words, lawoiyah is treated in the Theology as a creative principle emanating from the One, though the One is, as such, above it. Al-Kindi, I suggest, may well be reacting against this idea, even as he uses the terms, claiming that the True One’s Unity is His Being, which Being is never in any way shared by the rest of creation, though it owes its being, somehoz, to the Being of the One. Thus al-Kindi’s use of the Theology and—possibly— related writings is very circumspect; apparently he rejects Neoplatonic ontology but is drawn to its view of the trans- cendent One Who is, nevertheless, the Creator.°* We ought, therefore, to locate al-Kindi’s philosophy within a more narrowly Aristotelian framework, particularly as it is clear that he is modeling his First Philosophy to a large extent after parts of the Metaphysics. Indeed, al-Kindi’s ‘opening remarks read like a paraphrase of certain chapters in Alpha Elatton. We know, moreover, that al-Kindi was keenly interested in the Metaphysics, and that a certain Astit (or Eustt) translated it for him.” Moreover, al-Kindi openly states his admiration for Aristotle, and the Stagirite clearly is a primary moral as well as intellectual influence upon him.** Nevertheless, certain extra, even anti-Aristotelian conclusions ‘are meant to be drawn from the First Philasophy, though al- Kindi does not spell them out in great detail There is an indication of this ambivalent attitude to Aris- totelian teachings already in the opening remarks of “First Philosophy”, even, one may say, in the very choice of such a title, For al-Kindi prefers, in First Philosophy as in his other writings, to discuss that aspect of Metaphysics which Aristotle called augia, viz, the general principles of all being,